Soviet space-to-space guided missile

fightingirish

fightingirish

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The Russian military has finally revealed the rocket-propelled grenade weapon system developed for the Almaz space station project in the 1970s.
Links:

Soviet space rocket-propelled grenade revealed

Shield-2 anti-satellite missile | Story by Anatoly Zak | Editor: Alain Chabot
www.russianspaceweb.com

Salyut-3 (OPS-2) space station

The history of the Salyut-3 space station by Anatoly Zak
www.russianspaceweb.com
:eek: :cool:
View: https://youtu.be/0nIWMhOIK0g

See from ca.18 min onwards.
Yes, I know, that the Russian TV moderator is unpopular.:rolleyes:
Source:
www.thedrive.com

This Is Our First Ever Look At A Top Secret Soviet Space 'Missile'

The Shchit-2 was a missile-like system designed to protect Soviet military space stations from attack.
www.thedrive.com www.thedrive.com
Dear members or mods,
if this post is in the false topic, please let me know, so I can delete or move this post to a more suitable topic.
 
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natewillcome4you said:
Holy Schit that's awesome
Click to expand...

Do you mean, holy shchit ? :p

More seriously: For all mankind Cold War in space, intensifies. I knew about the 23-mm gun borrowed from combat aircraft, but this ?? (EDIT: they were related, obviously. This was the weapon beyond the gun !)
 
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Better known as Kaskad - and the Soviet Union very own Smart Rocks (Daniel Graham, 1983)
or Brilliant Pebbles (1986-1991, same idea, same concept, but - Teller and Lowell Wood after their Excalibur A-bomb-pumped-laser miserably failed)

Early concepts indeed used Salyut / Almaz derivative "orbital garages" - Smart Rocks was similar, and both were... shot down for the same reason: the "garage" not only was insanely heavy and expensive, it would also be a giant fat target for the ennemy.

Kaskad improved variant dropped the orbital garages, just like Brilliant Pebbles did at the same time, and for the same reasons.
 
Archibald said:
Better known as Kaskad - and the Soviet Union very own Smart Rocks (Daniel Graham, 1983)
or Brilliant Pebbles (1986-1991, same idea, same concept, but - Teller and Lowell Wood after their Excalibur A-bomb-pumped-laser miserably failed)

Early concepts indeed used Salyut / Almaz derivative "orbital garages" - Smart Rocks was similar, and both were... shot down for the same reason: the "garage" not only was insanely heavy and expensive, it would also be a giant fat target for the ennemy.

Kaskad improved variant dropped the orbital garages, just like Brilliant Pebbles did at the same time, and for the same reasons.
Click to expand...
I don't suppose you could drop some links regarding the early and later versions of kaskad? I am also a bit ignorant regarding which phase of the design cycle is depicted in the astronautix page
 
I will attach some documents written by space historians on the matter.
 
Oversimplified a bit...
- What is usually known as Polyus was also called Skif and was the laser battlestation, very much the Soviets "Star wars" in the "space laser" sense.

Polyus was Skif-DM, a hastily buildup mockup (mostly) and a far cry from an operational system.

There were multiple steps into the Skif program: DM (Polyus) then D1, D2...

Skif seemingly shared its laser with the Soviet Union very own ABL airborne laser platform, the Beriev A60.



- Kaskad was the spaceborne kinetic interceptors, so Smart Rocks / Brilliant Pebbles.

Quick Google search brings plenty of interesting readings


Attached is a very good summary of the Soviet answer to SDI, plus ASAT systems.
 

Attachments

  • Naryad-V-and-the-Soviet-Anti-Satellite-Fleet.pdf
    3.5 MB · Views: 61
The recent "Zvezda" channel broadcast about "Almaz" military space stations (five launched in 1970-1980, four sucsessfully; first were crewed stations, the last two were unmanned) included quite interesting material about their defense system. It is well-known that "Almaz" station have self-defense measure against possible attack, sabotage, and too close inspections: the 23-mm NR-23 autocannon. Less well known is, that missile-based self-defense system were in development too.

1619345570623.png

The "Schit-2" (rus. Shield-2) space-to-space missile was developed in the NPO Machinostroyenia, as a replacement for NR-23 cannon (known as "Schit-1"). It was supposed to be stored in pressurized "coffin" container on the outside of the station, and launched against incoming threat.

1619345772382.png

The missile have those subsystems:

* It was boosted toward the target by solid rocket "bottle" (presumably aircraft JATO-type rocket repurposed).

* Stabilization was achieved by rotation: there was an impeller rotary wheel, which was wind up before launch by a jet of high-pressure nitrogen from the bottle in container.

* The most ingenious part was a combined warhead/maneuvering system. The "hedgehog" of small solid fuel charges in heavy castings (96 of them) was placed around common combustion chamber, equipped with several exhaust nozzles. If missile needed to maneuver, one of the charges get ignited, the hot gases flow into chamber, and were redirected outside through nozzles. And if missile needed to explode - all remaining chambers were ignited simultaneously, causing overpressure to burst chamber apart, and throw chunks of missile (and empty charges castings) outward as heavy shrapnel.

* Presumably, the missile was guided toward target by IR seeker in front part (some sources mentioned radar guidance, but there is nothing resembling antenna, and bow part of missile looks like telescope, not radar)

1619346113901.png

The missile was supposed to have range about 100 km: it was self-defense weapon, not offense one. The delta-v supply is clearly limited, but the ingenious concept of combining warhead and maneuvering system allowed it to be rather compact.
 
Yes, when the mods merged these two topics today, they also rightfully changed the topic title. :)
 

1658344818295.png
Cut-away view of the Almaz space station, for which Russian developed technologies to defend it from ASAT attacks. (source)


1658344871871.png

Some sources say the generator was based on stealth technology earlier developed for satellites, but it is not known for sure if there is a link with the Kren experiments.


A Vostok-based Zenit spy satellite carrying a Nauka container equipped with a plasma engine (used for experiments called Kren). The satellite is shown attached to the upper stage of its launch vehicle.
Click to expand...

The fact sheet describes Legato as being designed to register information about the attack of a “small self-guided rotating projectile of the ‘hit’ type” (clearly a reference to ASM-135) and send it to ground stations of the Ministry of Defense.

1658345060169.png
 
“for a human-tended military space station known as Gals”
from the 80s? What?
From the space review article
 
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